Category Archives: Life

I’ve been too sick to do any thrifting lately. Yesterday I started to feel better, got myself together and left the house. Only to return about 10 minutes later with just a pint of a milk. However this morning I have woken up and not coughed once. My chest is starting to feel clearer – there’s no bronchial wheeze on it – has this infection finally flown and left me alone?

So while I’ve been laid up in bed trying to sleep through the wheezing, I’ve been stumbling and looking for amazing upcycling/ reusing/ remaking ideas. Today I thought I’d collect together a few of my favourite furniture from upcycled items. In our flat we have some amazing bookshelves that are upcycled goodiness – however I’m not sharing photos with you yet until the flat is sorted and I’m happy with them enough to take photographs 😉 That’s to say – I’m stupidly happy with the shelves, I’m just not happy with how untidy I am and how messy they are. I’m embarrassed to show them to you!

So here are some of my favourite furniture upcycled projects:

Repurposed drawers:

schubLaden

schubLaden

These wonderful designs are from a German shop called schubLaden {meaning drawers in German}.

This image was found on Flickr – however I’m not sure who actually designed these:

repurposed drawers

I would happily make Mr Second-Hand spend his spring evenings sawing away at old cabinets so I could have something this splendid in the flat 🙂

I have a real love for Vespas – in fact I still think that one day I will own one. So these seats made out of old Vespas by Italian company Bel&Bel make me very happy indeed {although I’d rather have the bike than the chair!}:

Bel&Bel

Bel&Bel

Katie Thomspon from Recreate is an absolute genius. These beautifully created pieces of furniture made from repurposed cases are simply divine:

Recreate

Recreate

Recreate

Not surprisingly all of the seats I’ve chosen to feature are now sold however her website states that she does do custom orders – if only she wasn’t in South Africa!

Finally I’m going to feature the wonderful work of Dallas welder, Joel Hester. His furniture made from repurposed car hoods are simply inspired. All of the projects are ‘handmade to order’ which means that you truly get one off pieces especially for you!

Firstly – the beds:

Aren’t these gorgeous? Unfortunately I can’t post larger pics but if you click on them they’ll take you right to the page. They are all designed around the shape of your mattress, the size you want etc. What more could you want? If I had the money and the space I would be purchasing one of these. However, Mr Second-Hand is creating our bed this Spring so I’ll be posting photographs of that 🙂

I’m just going to post the coffee table too that I love because of the unique pattern on it caused by the original paint and rust:

Coffee Table

This is from their website about the standard coffee table specifications:

straight or modern oval leg design

30+ year old relcaimed sheetmetal top

MIG/TIG welded steel frame

gloss clear coat

stainless steel hardware

leveling feet

original VIN badge���

tables weigh 60+ pounds, the real deal …

Oh yes – they certainly do look the real deal 🙂 LOVE ‘EM!

I promise that very soon I will be posting photographs of our own repurposed furniture once the flat is sorted!

No – not the ones you fly down and break your arm on at the bottom. Instead I’m talking about photographic slides.
Many months ago we bought a load of photographic slides from Deptford Market and Ebay to turn into either this:

However life took over and we still haven’t got around to creating these wonderful things. At the moment we are brassic so I’m hoping that we can start putting one or both of these together while we’re trying not to leave the flat and have our usual adventures, which often involve trips to one or two pubs on the way. And some eatery of some sort.
In preparation for this I’ve been scanning in the ones I find interesting/ unusual – if you click on the wind-swept doggy below you’ll find some that I’ve scanned in:

Thrifty Boy also found an awesome box of photographic slides in a junk shop in Greenwich. They weren’t cheap, however they ARE amazing – Novosti Press Agency slides of Russia in 1975. You can see some of the set here:

These ones we don’t really want to turn into anything so we’re hoping to make a light box to display them in. We saw this one in SuckUK:

SuckUK Slide Light

But it’s about £150 – £200! As Thrifty Boy is very clever he’s currently designing a slide box for our slides. Hopefully it means that we can have an ever-changing wall display of our collection 🙂

I HATE not being able to post photos at the moment of my Freecycle wonderfulness – however – it is safe to say that this weekend was CHOCKABLOCKFULL of Freecycled wonderfulness.

On Saturday we picked up two clothes rails – I despise wardrobes and have done for a long time. Wardrobes have doors, doors can be shut and hide things – specifically mess. Therefore if I have a clothes rail my clothes will not get messy and indeed be on show. The downside is obvious of course – light from the windows can fade my clothing and dust can settle – however I do much prefer them to bulky and unsightly wardrobes. Unless one day I can find a beautiful art-deco wardrobe that will fulfill all my needs.

Yesterday we had two goodies to collect. First we took a stroll down into Brockley to collect a random box of kitchen stuff. A 4 slice toaster, 3 saucepans, some glasses of varying sizes and a random oval plate. All of which (apart from the toaster of course) are sitting in our magic cupboard (read dishwasher) ready to be cleaned and used. My asthma hit me after that and Ben collected our two clothes airers. Since we moved in we’ve been drying our clothes on the radiators which has meant that we’ve not been doing much washing. Now we have TWO airers ready to dry our clothes on which makes us very happy bunnies indeed. I can’t wait to empty our big bag of washing that needs doing and hang it all around the flat.

Freecycle is always hit and miss. Sometimes you’ll see something you really want (like a bag of vintage cameras) and miss out on it by milliseconds. I kind of think that this is where the fun lies. You send your email you see what happens. I’m sure some people have insider knowledge of what’s coming up before any one else and gets all the fine goodies first 😦 But that’s just me because I WANTED THAT BAG OF VINTAGE CAMERAS! (even though my dad has a box of cameras and equipment to unload onto me next time I see them).

Later this week I will be the proud custodian of a darkroom too – I can’t wait. I’m not sure when I’m going to have the time/ money to start developing my own photographs but I’m sure as hell going to make time/ money to do so. I’m very very excited to see what godawful results I come up with. It’s been a looooooooooooooooooooooooooong time since I set foot in a dark room so I’m quite nervous/ excited. Our bathroom will never smell the same again!

Friday night was fun. Despite not wanting to actually go out due to having a stinking cold, I still took the time to adjust my dress and make and extra petticoat to go underneath it. Hopefully I’ll get a good photo of how I looked on Friday night, but as I entered the doors of the club I was asked to pose for a photo as I was officially ‘cool’ 🙂 I’ve never been ‘cool’ and at 36 I never expected to ever be cool. But apparently my outfit was and I’m pleased to say the intrinsic parts that made it up were ALL second-hand. My dress was from the Salvation Army shop in Catford and cost me £3.49. My jacket was handed down to me via a friend of a friend – as it didn’t fit them, my bag was a box purse from a charity shop (quite a while ago so I can’t remember where it was from) for £3 and my shoes were my darling Pradas – £9.95! The only new aspects to my outfit were my pink tights and some more netting to go under my dress.

I’ve had to put things on hold a bit here as I’ve embarked on something that is long over-due. The great big tidy-up.

I’m a hoarder – I come from a family of hoarders – and this hoarding has never been put in check. Now it’s got out of hand and I need to be ruthless. So while I only work 2 days a week I’m using the rest of the time to sort my crap out.

Today I started on the worst offender – my study. It’s always been the ‘junk room’ where things get dumped and lost. It’s going to be a longer and bigger job than I originally thought. I had to reign myself in from saving old envelopes because I could create gorgeousness from them like these:

Security Envelope Tags by The Felt Mouse

Security Envelope Buttons by The Workroom

Beads by JPolka

Beautiful Art - by ClumsyBird

However it was my wardrobe where I was having my biggest fight. I find it so difficult to give away clothes, constantly thinking that ‘I will fit into that again one day’ or ‘I could alter that to make something better’. However some items of clothes must leave my wardrobe and either head their merry way to a charity shop OR head their way into creating my new quilt. I’ve decided that my big quilt will be my winter project. A hodge-podge of colours and designs. Large enough to fit our super-king size bed. I’m not going for a complicated pattern for my first proper quilt – just a simple box design. This pool on Flickr is a great inspiration: Reclaimed Fabric, Patchwork and Quilting

So I’ll try and blog in a few days with another tribute to some wonderful upcyclers. I also have some new buys to share with you lovely people 🙂 In the meantime keep recycling and being wonderfully creative!

It’s increasingly difficult sometimes to have this ‘sustainable’ life when your other half can be such a snob. On Saturday he bought our sister-in-law’s birthday present – now – obviously buying a ‘new’ gift went against ‘my’ principles – however he refused to purchase something used or handmade – then when he went to look for wrapping paper I said ‘We have newspaper at home – use that’ – he refused.

Does anyone else come up against problems when trying to live ‘second-hand’ with their partners?

I’m not going to force him into my way of thinking – afterall he should want to come to that place in his own way. I once picked him up a shirt at a jumble sale for 20p – he’s never worn it however much he said that he ‘did’ like it! ha ha. He has nothing against reading second-hand books, or buying second-hand dvds and cds, however when it comes to textiles (ie: clothes) for some reason he is completely turned off. I will do it slowly – picking up awesome pieces that he loves then hopefully he will come around!

Deptford Junk Market

Today I start my internship – can’t wait. I’m full of cold but who cares? I’m also obviously looking forward to trawling the bargain charity shops while I’m there – naughty naughty! hee hee. It’s also right next to the famous Deptford Junk Market which again will be my downfall. This is a flea market with a difference, you literally are buying fleas! ha ha … of course I’m joking, however it’s a naughty place with naughty things that I end up buying because I think I can turn them into something. Generally I can’t however it’s a fantastic place to rummage. I’ll try to be good!